Don't Torture A Duckling (1972)

A reporter and a promiscuous young woman try to solve a series of child killings in a remote southern Italian town that's rife with superstition and distrust of outsiders.

Don't Torture a Duckling is a 1972 Italian giallo film directed by Lucio Fulci. It is significant within Fulci's filmography as it is one of the first in which he began using violent gore effects, something he would continue to do in his later films.  The soundtrack was composed by Riz Ortolani and features vocals by Ornella Vanoni.

This film has all the elements of the Italian mystery/thriller genre known as the giallo, but really pulls the viewers in by having each key character with a skeleton in his/her own closet. This keeps the viewer doing as much detective work as the detectives in the film itself. Who is killing the young boys in town?  There is a long list of suspects and there are many twists and turns along the way.  Trust me.  You won´t know who the killer is until the last moments of the film.  The long list of kooky characters include the towns police force, a small-time reporter, a beautiful and rich ex-drug addict, a young priest and his mother, An old man who practices witchcraft and his female protégé, a mentally handicapped townsman, and a deaf/mute little girl.

A drowned fine young Christian boy

This is not a  typical Fulci gore film.  Although it does contain elements of both - it is more of an old-fashioned murder mystery, with darker subject matter and a few scenes of graphic violence. (although nothing nearly as strong as some of Fulci's later works)  The background music is effective, and ranges from jarringly creepy at the beginning to low-key jazz, to indigenous Italian songs. Acting is generally average, though in a couple of cases, it's a bit overdone.  The film is actually a thoughtful and disturbing examination of the dangers of superstition.

One rather strange and disturbing part of the film is the beautiful young woman who flirts and makes sexual advances to the young boys. At one point she's hanging out butt ass naked and asks a boy if he'd like to sleep with her. And these aren't 16 and 17 years old boys...they appear to be in the 10-12 year range. Awkward.

I enjoy young boys

While this film may not feature loads of gore, it does have two of Fulci's nastiest sequences to make up for it. The nastiest involves a woman being brutally slaughtered by a group of men in a cemetery, while the image of a man falling from a cliff and hitting any number of rocks on the way down is liable to turn some stomachs. 

This film is not quite as easy to get hold of as most other Fulci flicks, but I assure that searching it will pay off.  Overall, it's a shame that Fulci didn't make more films like this. Don't Torture a Duckling is one of his best works and every Giallo fan should see it. 

This bitch is crazy.

Trivia:

Because of the film's controversial storyline, which criticized the Catholic Church, the movie was blacklisted and received a limited theatrical run throughout Europe and was never released in theaters in the United States. In 2000, Anchor Bay secured the rights and released the film for the first time in the United States on DVD.

Composer Riz Ortolani reused a small segment of music from this film in his later composition for Cannibal Holocaust. 

Lucio Fulci has said in numerous interviews that he ranks this movie as his most personal favorite of all the movies he directed in his career.

While talking to Andrea (Tomas Milian), Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet) at a certain point says "A rose, by any other name". This is a quotation of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", but also the name of the episode of Star Trek where Barbara Bouchet has appeared in 1968: "By any other name" (Season 2, Episode 22) 

Voodoo dolls even make an appearance.

Deep Red (1975)

A musician witnesses the murder of a famous psychic, and then teams up with a fiesty reporter to find the killer while evading attempts on their lives by the unseen killer bent on keeping a dark secret buried. 

Deep Red is a 1975 Italian giallo film, directed by Dario Argento and co-written by Argento and Bernardino Zapponi.  It was produced by Claudio and Salvatore Argento, and the film's score was composed and performed by Goblin. It stars Macha Meril as a medium and David Hemmings as a man who investigates a series of murders performed by a mysterious figure wielding a hatchet.

As with other Argento films, the accent in "Deep Red" is on the visuals: the artsy sets, the garish lighting, the tendency for the camera to dwell on brutal details. Unlike his film Suspiria, where the story is weak, Deep Red has a good plot element that builds to an excellent finale. Clues are very subtle, but they're there, if you pay close attention.

Argento's film thrives on offbeat sounds and images

Deep Red is about a man that sees a murder committed and then tries to unravel the mystery of finding the killer.  David Hemmings does a fine job in the lead as he walks the streets of an Italian city in search of this homicidal killer. The killings, most done with a hatchet, are inventive and decidedly gruesome.  The acting, even though most dubbed, is very good. The set locations are very atmospheric as well. Argento's camera, however, is the principal character as it shows us all kinds of images related to plot and otherwise and reached into our subconscience for real meaning. This is first and foremost a visual film.

What I did find annoying in "Deep Red" was the background music. Most viewers like the sound of Goblin. But the music was too frantic, and not really suitable for a thriller.  While I still favor "Suspiria" as Argento's best film, it's easy to see why Deep Red is considered his greatest by some. It's a terrific landmark thriller that firmly ranks as one of Argento's best!

Trivia: 

In one scene David Hemmings walks past a bar at night. The bar is styled after the famous painting "Nighthawks", by Edward Hopper.

Following the 11 seconds of cuts made in 1993 to the Redemption video the Platinum DVD restored the brief dogfight scene though one cut was retained. On a Dario Argento collection where versions could be chosen (English or Italian) the longer Italian language version showed a very sloppy cut before the unfortunate lizard was seen on-screen with a pin through its head. The shorter English language print had no such cuts. 

The closeup shots of the killer's hands, clad in black leather gloves, were performed by director Dario Argento himself.

Director trademark:[Dario Argento] Murder victim crashes through window.

Director trademark: [Dario Argento] Character recalls clues from memory.

Director Dario Argento's shop in Rome is named 'Profondo Rosso' after this film. 

Co-writer Bernardino Zapponi said the inspiration behind the murder scenes came from Argento and himself thinking of painful injuries that the audience could relate to. Basically, not everyone knows the pain of being shot by a gun, but everyone has at some point accidentally struck furniture or been scalded by hot water.

After the international success of Dario Argento's next film Suspiria (1977), Profondo Rosso was released in Japan under the title Suspiria 2 even though it has no plot connections with Suspiria and was made two years prior to Suspiria.

Even if the story is set in Rome, most of the outdoor scenes were actually shot in Turin.

The role of Carlo's male transvestite lover, Massimo Ricci, was actually played by female actress Geraldine Hooper.

"You have just seen Deep Red."

Death Occurred Last Night (1970)

A chief police inspector investigates the disappearance of a 25-year-old, mentally retarded woman, the daughter of a lonely widower. After she turns up dead, the cops race to find the killers before the grieving father does. 

This a pretty good unknown Italian Giallo directed by Duccio Tessari.  In Italy a crime story is nicknamed "giallo", that is to say "yellow", because a very successful series of detective stories published before WWII by Mondadori had yellow covers.  The film stars Raf Vallone's and his performance as the troubled father is incredibly painful to watch.  Painful as in actually being able to feel his sorrow with his daughter missing.  Frank Wolff also does a great job as the police detective also searching for the missing girl.  This was one of his last roles.

A grieving father gets his revenge.

 The story involves a mentally retarded woman being kidnapped and sold into prostitution. Both the father and the police search in every brothel in town looking for her.  The film has a slow burn approach, focusing on the dramatic and psychological impact on those involved.  Highly recommended if you can actually find a copy.

Let me sing you a song before going back out to investigate murder.